A Delaware corrections officer killed during a prison riot this week is being hailed as a hero after he alerted his fellow corrections officers to the threat as he was under attack.

According to CNN, Delaware corrections Sgt. Steven Floyd had tried to warn his colleagues rushing into the building of just how bad the riot at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna really was.

“Even in his last moments, as the inmates attempted to take over the building, Sgt. Floyd told a couple of the lieutenants to get out of the building, that it was a trap,” Correctional Officers Association of Delaware President Geoff Klopp told reporters.

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Floyd had ducked into a closet before he was seized upon by prisoners who took over one of the complex’s buildings on Wednesday. He was found unresponsive after authorities stormed the building Thursday morning. He was later pronounced dead.

Details about the exact cause of death were not released, but WBOC reported Friday that it had been ruled “homicide by trauma.”

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WDEL-AM reports that Vaughn had joined the department in 2000 and promoted to sergeant in 2002.

Delaware Gov. John Carney said that “(t)oday, all of us mourn with the family of Sgt. Floyd.”

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“These brave men and women go to work every day knowing they may not come home — as do their families,” Carney said. “We owe them an incredible debt of gratitude, and we owe that family the support of all of us across this state… Today we mourn, and tomorrow — and for a long time going forward — we also have to investigate what happened here, determine the facts, and make sure it never happens again.”

Klopp said that Floyd was working an 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift when the 19-hour riot and hostage standoff broke out. By the time backup got to the state’s largest prison, four corrections employees were being held hostage.

(One element of the situation that didn’t get a lot of attention in the mainstream media was the prisoners involved in the takeover said, in part, that they were protesting some policies of President Donald J. Trump. Rioting and lawlessness seem to be the default method for Trump critics these days.)

“Sgt. Steven Floyd Sr. was a father, a grandfather, a loving husband,” Klopp said. “He worked overtime three and four times a week to put his kids through college … anything his kids or his wife wanted or his grandkids. He loved them with all of his heart.”